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Thank you to everyone who has posted about retractable roof opening problems -- I know a LOT more than I did before! But I'm still missing something. My roof opens to the point where the trunk is open and ready to receive the roof; the windshield latches have disengaged successfully, and both the LH and RH motors begin engaging (as viewed from the open trunk). The issue is that there's a "latch" on the passenger side, roughly behind the passenger's head, connected to a cable that should be taut, but is not. The cable is fairly loose, and does not tighten at all even though the RH motor seems to start spinning. I'm not sure if there's a separate motor for this latch, or if it's the one motor for that latch and lifting/moving the roof, or what?
I had hoped I would find a DTC since it seems like either a motor or a switch/sensor is not working. However, I loaded Techstream and there are no DTCs reported in general or specifically for the retractable roof.
I've also confirmed all fuses in front and back are OK, glove compartment switches are OK, and tried the disconnected-battery trick, too. :-)
Continuing to analyze and diagnose....
Thanks!
PS Picture added: The bigger red circle is the latch that needs to be pulled rearward in order to allow the hinging action to take place. The smaller red circle is the cable that should be taut, and should be pulling on the latch, but is not.
Last edited by DIYbret; 10-26-18 at 02:47 PM.
Reason: Adding pic
It sounds like the latch that holds the two parts of the roof together is not retracting. It is tied to a cable, that is connected to a pivot. The pivot is connected to the trunk opening via another cable.
Read this post and see if this sounds like your problem, you can skip down to entry #28
Thanks for the quick reply! I was tearing apart the trunk for awhile, and the good news is that I've found the problem. The bad news is that it's a broken bracket where the barrel end of the cable is supposed to be attached. No DTC codes because everything is working as designed, except that the cable isn't pulling to release the latch.
The first picture shows the pivot.
The second pic is showing how much slack there is back towards the connection point near the tail light.
The third pic is unfortunately not very clear with the angle I had, but my finger is pointing to what's supposed to be holding the barrel end of the cable. :-(
I think my options at this point are:
1. Disassemble and try to recreate the bracket to hold the barrel (welder, drilling)
2. Order a replacement component -- though I'm not yet sure what that would be nor how much it would cost (hence option 1 is still an option though I'm not very fond of that option!)
Given it's $367, my plan is to disassemble mine further, and see if I can engineer some sort of fix. I'll post the update, along with some better pics.
Given it's $367, my plan is to disassemble mine further, and see if I can engineer some sort of fix. I'll post the update, along with some better pics.
Given it's $367, my plan is to disassemble mine further, and see if I can engineer some sort of fix. I'll post the update, along with some better pics.
FIXED! Thanks for everyone's help! I definitely learned a lot. And, I thought about buying the replacement assembly from ebay, but I had to detach the assembly anyways. So that gave me a chance to see what had failed.
Pictures below:
1. The cable-end barrel had fallen out of the bracket, as known previously.
2. The bracket had not broken, but had been bent open (more on this later)
3. The immediate fix was to bend it back to the shape it needed to be. But, having been bent and weakened, it needed to be reinforced.
4. After multiple tries with welding, I realized I just couldn't get the metal hot enough to bind without melting through the thin metal that I was trying to weld to. I'm not a professional welder by any means, so it might have been possible for someone who is... but I still wanted to reinforce, so I found some JB Weld Putty that I had on my workbench, and the 4th pic shows the glob of putty that should be able to help (after filing/sanding it down to allow it some place to adhere).
After putting things back together, I can now see why the above failed. The cables have stretched to where the latch wasn't being pulled back far enough. So it appears that the electric motor was enough to bend the barrel bracket when the latch wasn't pulled out of the way. I had to adjust the cable length, where the 2 cables connect on the pivot, about 1/4 to 3/8" before the latch was being pulled back enough.
The top is now functional again. I've left the trunk compartments mostly open, and will give it a workout for a week. Worst case scenario, it does fail again, and I go get the $125-200 replacement assembly. One thing that I hadn't read elsewhere is that the assembly comes off the vehicle with just 3 nuts. That was surprisingly easy. Granted, there are 3 nuts holding it to the trunk, and electrical connections, too. But I thought detaching the assembly was going to be much more difficult. As others have said, the hardest part (most time consuming) of the whole job was taking apart the various trunk covers/flooring/sides.
Time to get off the computer and go for a top-down ride!
FIXED! Thanks for everyone's help! I definitely learned a lot. And, I thought about buying the replacement assembly from ebay, but I had to detach the assembly anyways. So that gave me a chance to see what had failed.
Pictures below:
1. The cable-end barrel had fallen out of the bracket, as known previously.
2. The bracket had not broken, but had been bent open (more on this later)
3. The immediate fix was to bend it back to the shape it needed to be. But, having been bent and weakened, it needed to be reinforced.
4. After multiple tries with welding, I realized I just couldn't get the metal hot enough to bind without melting through the thin metal that I was trying to weld to. I'm not a professional welder by any means, so it might have been possible for someone who is... but I still wanted to reinforce, so I found some JB Weld Putty that I had on my workbench, and the 4th pic shows the glob of putty that should be able to help (after filing/sanding it down to allow it some place to adhere).
After putting things back together, I can now see why the above failed. The cables have stretched to where the latch wasn't being pulled back far enough. So it appears that the electric motor was enough to bend the barrel bracket when the latch wasn't pulled out of the way. I had to adjust the cable length, where the 2 cables connect on the pivot, about 1/4 to 3/8" before the latch was being pulled back enough.
The top is now functional again. I've left the trunk compartments mostly open, and will give it a workout for a week. Worst case scenario, it does fail again, and I go get the $125-200 replacement assembly. One thing that I hadn't read elsewhere is that the assembly comes off the vehicle with just 3 nuts. That was surprisingly easy. Granted, there are 3 nuts holding it to the trunk, and electrical connections, too. But I thought detaching the assembly was going to be much more difficult. As others have said, the hardest part (most time consuming) of the whole job was taking apart the various trunk covers/flooring/sides.
Time to get off the computer and go for a top-down ride!
Thanks again to all.
--Bret
well done and I bet that JB Weld will do the trick!
used it many times!
a big thank you for the follow up post! It will certainly help someone else down the road!
i like your work and hope you will continue to contribute your knowledge.
I myself had this problem along with at least one other person, so it isn't a common problem, but it is something people should be aware of.
I think it has to do with how the cable is attached to the hook. If you look at your picture, the cable pulls totally on the little arm. That stretches out the little arm. If you wrap the cable around the meaty part of the bracket, the pull force is on the meaty part and the little arm is only used to hold the barrel in place.
You can verify by looking how your other hinge is done
10-26-18, 01:35 PM
2004 SC430 Roof opening only partially
